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Luminato and National Ballet offer riches to Toronto dance lovers

This weekend Toronto dance lovers will be faced with an embarrassment of riches as both Luminato and the National Ballet step out in high-flying style, ending sensationally successful seasons in both cases.

Ever since 2008, when the Mark Morris Dance Group made its first Luminato appearance, I’ve been craving a return visit. Now, for three performances only, this great troupe will be at the Sony Centre with the long-overdue Canadian premiere of its signature piece, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, which has been thrilling the world’s cultural capitals since 1988.

L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato by Mark Morris Dance Group, which is at the Sony Centre June 21 to 23 as part of the Luminato Festival. (ELAINE MAYSON PHOTO)

In my mind, this is a chance no dance lover should miss. The piece combines Handel’s music (played by Toronto’s great baroque orchestra, Tafelmusik) with poetry by Milton, but it’s very much a modern piece. And unlike Luminato’s Joni Mitchell tribute concerts and its Marina Abramovic opera, L’Allegro is not sold out. Indeed, bargain tickets are available.

Just a few blocks away at the Four Seasons Centre, the National Ballet will end its excellent 2012-2013 season with an intriguing and challenging mixed program including The Man in Black, a work about Johnny Cash choreographed by James Kudelka. Meanwhile, the company is bidding farewell to executive director Kevin Garland, who has kept the organization afloat through scary economic times and formed a great partnership with artistic director Karen Kain.

In both cases, the curtain comes down for the last time on Sunday afternoon, June 23. Both events take place in large venues. Each faces its own set of marketing challenges. Is it possible for both to draw the crowds they deserve?

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In a perfect world, these two organizations would not be forced to schedule key dance events the same week. But giving Toronto audiences a chance to see major dance companies from abroad is part of Luminato’s mandate and it is by definition an international arts festival that takes place in mid-June.

If the National Ballet had control over scheduling at the Four Seasons Centre, it would not choose to occupy the house in June. But the ballet company is a tenant in a building owned by its sibling, the Canadian Opera Company, which naturally exercises its rights as landlord to set the schedule.

There’s a historic reason. In the 1980s, the opera company and the ballet company were partners in a plan to build a ballet-opera house at Bay and Wellesley. But after costs soared to more than $300 million, Ontario’s new NDP regime cancelled the government’s commitment and the project died.

It took more than a decade before funds could be raised for the Four Seasons Centre, and the ballet company opted to sit this one out and let the opera company go it alone.

Ever since Luminato entered the Toronto arts scene in 2007, the festival and the ballet company have been nervous allies. Luminato usually included the ballet’s June season in its brochure, trying to assuage worries from Canada’s leading classical dance company that its ticket sales would be hurt by Luminato events.

Toronto audiences should be thrilled by what Kain and Garland have delivered, but it seems to me it is also a high priority for Toronto to see other great companies, such as the Russian companies that occasionally turn up at the Sony Centre and the excellent troupes we have savoured at Luminato in years past: the Nederlands Dans Theatre from The Hague and Batsheva from Tel Aviv.

In 2011, the National Ballet’s sold-out run of Alice in Wonderland demonstrated that when it can use its June dates to present a new ballet with huge popular appeal, Luminato presents no problem.

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Meanwhile, I am dreaming of a very happy ending to the wary pas de deux between two great organizations that both contribute so much to making Toronto one of the best places in the world for arts lovers.

Last year, Martha Wainwright, who took part in Luminato’s 2012 tribute to her late mother, Kate McGarrigle, said in an interview on Global TV that she plans to return to the festival in a major ballet production about Edith Piaf, whose songs are often performed by Wainwright. She mentioned that the choreographer is Christoper Wheeldon, who happens to be a favourite of Kain’s and the creator of Alice.

Nothing has been announced, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if at a future festival, the National Ballet of Canada and Luminato collaborated and co-presented the premiere of Piaf?

Tickets for L’Allegro on June 21, 22 and 23, regularly priced at $75, are available for $40 in the Toronto Star section of the Sony Centre. Go to http://luminatofestival.com/pages/mark-morris-star/ lumina.to/starEND or Luminato’s hub box office in David Pecaut Square from noon to 8 p.m. on June 19 and June 20. Rush tickets will be available the day of the performance at the hub box office or at the Sony Centre (starting at noon on June 21, 5 p.m. on June 22 and at 1:30 p.m. on June 23).

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